Methods and systems for electronic commerce order management

ABSTRACT

A computer-implemented method and system may include receiving, at an e-commerce order processor, an order from a first user comprising at least one product, wherein the order is received in association with an order sharing configuration indication; processing the order based on an order sharing criterion; receiving an order change from a second user; and processing an order completion.

FIELD

The present disclosure relates generally to order management, and morespecifically to order management preferences in electronic commerce.

BACKGROUND

Online commerce conventionally involves the selection of products,placing the products in a shopping cart, inserting payment details, andcompleting the transaction. It is often difficult to deal with aninaccurate order after the order has been completed leading possibly toorder cancellations, returns, and the like. This is particularly truefor complex or expensive orders or orders that involve multiple users.There is a need in art for methods and systems to provide greaterflexibility in order management and for example, reduce the possibilityof cancellations or returns.

SUMMARY

In an aspect, a computer-implemented method may include receiving, at ane-commerce order processor, an order comprising at least one product,wherein the order is received in conjunction with an order completionevent; receiving an order completion criterion; receiving an orderchange; and processing an order completion based on the order completioncriterion. In embodiments, an order deferment may be included for theorder based on an order completion criterion. The processing of theorder deferment may be pre-processed with respect to receiving theorder. The order completion event may include a payment submission andpayment processing of the payment submission may be made afterprocessing the order completion. The order completion event may includea payment authorization and payment processing of the paymentauthorization may be made after processing the order completion. Theorder completion event may include a payment offer and fulfillment ofthe payment offer may be made after processing the order completion. Theorder completion may be processed in the absence of receiving an orderchange after a predetermined period of time. The order completioncriterion may be stored as an order preference. The order completioncriterion may be a monetary purchase value threshold for the order. Theorder completion criterion may be a time period delay between thereceived order and the processing of the order completion. The ordercompletion criterion may be a quantity threshold for the at least oneproduct. The order completion criterion may be a quantity threshold forproducts comprising the order. The order completion criterion may be anumber of changes made to the order. The order deferment may be a delayin a payment processing and fulfillment of the order. The orderdeferment may be a delay in an invoicing and fulfillment of the order.The order change may be at least one of adding a product to the order,deleting a product from the order, or changing a quantity for a productin the order. The order may be a new product order and may be for atleast one new product and processing the order completion comprises anorder fulfillment process. The order may be an exchange order forexchanging a first product for a second product and processing the ordercompletion may include an exchange of product process. The order may bea return order for returning a product and processing the ordercompletion may include a product return process. The product may be aservice to be provided. The e-commerce order processor may provide auser interface for composing the order, presenting the order completionevent, and providing the order completion criterion.

In an aspect, a system may include an e-commerce order processorconfigured to store a set of instructions that, when executed, cause thee-commerce order processor to: receive, at an e-commerce orderprocessor, an order comprising at least one product, wherein the orderis received in conjunction with an order completion event; receive anorder completion criterion; receive an order change; and process anorder completion based on the order completion criterion. Inembodiments, an order deferment may be included for the order based onan order completion criterion. The processing of the order deferment maybe pre-processed with respect to receiving the order. The ordercompletion event may include a payment submission and payment processingof the payment submission may be made after processing the ordercompletion. The order completion event may include a paymentauthorization and payment processing of the payment authorization may bemade after processing the order completion. The order completion eventmay include a payment offer and fulfillment of the payment offer may bemade after processing the order completion. The order completion may beprocessed in the absence of receiving an order change after apredetermined period of time. The order completion criterion may bestored as an order preference. The order completion criterion may be amonetary purchase value threshold for the order. The order completioncriterion may be a time period delay between the received order and theprocessing of the order completion. The order completion criterion maybe a quantity threshold for the at least one product. The ordercompletion criterion may be a quantity threshold for products comprisingthe order. The order completion criterion may be a number of changesmade to the order. The order deferment may be a delay in a paymentprocessing and fulfillment of the order. The order deferment may be adelay in an invoicing and fulfillment of the order. The order change maybe at least one of adding a product to the order, deleting a productfrom the order, or changing a quantity for a product in the order. Theorder may be a new product order and may be for at least one new productand processing the order completion comprises an order fulfillmentprocess. The order may be an exchange order for exchanging a firstproduct for a second product and processing the order completion mayinclude an exchange of product process. The order may be a return orderfor returning a product and processing the order completion may includea product return process. The product may be a service to be provided.The e-commerce order processor may provide a user interface forcomposing the order, presenting the order completion event, andproviding the order completion criterion.

In an aspect, a computer-implemented method may include receiving, at ane-commerce order processor, an order from a first user comprising atleast one product, wherein the order is received in association with anorder sharing configuration indication; processing the order based on anorder sharing criterion; receiving an order change from a second user;and processing an order completion. In embodiments, the order sharingconfiguration indication may indicate that order privileges for theorder are shared with at least the second user based on an order sharingconfiguration. The order sharing configuration may include sharingprivileges associated with adding products, deleting products, orchanging a quantity of products in the order. The order sharingconfiguration may include sharing privileges including a maximummonetary value for products added to the order. The order sharingconfiguration may include sharing privileges including a maximumquantity value for products added to the order. The order sharingconfiguration may include sharing privileges including a limitassociated with a brand name associated with a product added to theorder. The order sharing configuration may be received with the orderfrom the first user. The order sharing configuration indication mayindicate that changes to the order are permitted from the second userprior to processing the order completion based on the order sharingcriterion. The order sharing criterion may limit the second user to amonetary purchase value threshold for the order and processing the ordercompletion when the monetary purchase value threshold is met. The ordersharing criterion may limit the second user to a time period delaybetween the received order and the processing of the order completion.The order sharing criterion may limit the second user to a quantitythreshold for the at least one product. The order sharing criterion maylimit the second user to a quantity threshold for total productscomprising the order. The order change may be at least one of adding aproduct to the order, deleting a product from the order, or changing aquantity for a product in the order. The order may be a new productorder and may be for at least one new product and processing the ordercompletion comprises an order fulfillment process. The order may be anexchange order for exchanging a first product for a second product andprocessing the order completion may include an exchange of productprocess. The order may be a return order for returning a product andprocessing the order completion may include a product return process.The product may be a service to be provided. The e-commerce orderprocessor may provide a user interface for receiving the order and theorder sharing criterion.

In an aspect, a system may include an e-commerce order processorconfigured to store a set of instructions that, when executed, cause thee-commerce order processor to: receive, at an e-commerce orderprocessor, an order from a first user comprising at least one product,wherein the order is received in conjunction with an order sharingconfiguration indication; process the order based on an order sharingcriterion; receive an order change from a second user; and process anorder completion. In embodiments, the order sharing configurationindication may indicate that order privileges for the order are sharedwith at least the second user based on an order sharing configuration.The order sharing configuration may include sharing privilegesassociated with adding products, deleting products, or changing aquantity of products in the order. The order sharing configuration mayinclude sharing privileges including a maximum monetary value forproducts added to the order. The order sharing configuration may includesharing privileges including a maximum quantity value for products addedto the order. The order sharing configuration may include sharingprivileges including a limit associated with a brand name associatedwith a product added to the order. The order sharing configuration maybe received with the order from the first user. The order sharingconfiguration indication may indicate that changes to the order arepermitted from the second user prior to processing the order completionbased on the order sharing criterion. The order sharing criterion maylimit the second user to a monetary purchase value threshold for theorder and processing the order completion when the monetary purchasevalue threshold is met. The order sharing criterion may limit the seconduser to a time period delay between the received order and theprocessing of the order completion. The order sharing criterion maylimit the second user to a quantity threshold for the at least oneproduct. The order sharing criterion may limit the second user to aquantity threshold for total products comprising the order. The orderchange may be at least one of adding a product to the order, deleting aproduct from the order, or changing a quantity for a product in theorder. The order may be a new product order and may be for at least onenew product and processing the order completion comprises an orderfulfillment process. The order may be an exchange order for exchanging afirst product for a second product and processing the order completionmay include an exchange of product process. The order may be a returnorder for returning a product and processing the order completion mayinclude a product return process. The product may be a service to beprovided. The e-commerce order processor may provide a user interfacefor receiving the order and the order sharing criterion.

In an aspect, a computer-implemented method may include receiving, at ane-commerce order processor, an order from a first user comprising atleast one product, wherein the order is received in conjunction with anorder sharing configuration indication and in conjunction with an ordercompletion event; processing an order deferment for the order based onan order sharing criterion; receiving an order change from a seconduser; and processing an order completion based on the order sharingcriterion. In embodiments, the order sharing configuration indicationmay indicate that order privileges for the order are shared with atleast the second user based on an order sharing configuration. The ordersharing configuration may include sharing privileges associated withadding, deleting, or changing quantities of products comprising theorder. The order sharing configuration may include sharing privilegescomprising a maximum monetary value for adding products to the order.The order sharing configuration may include sharing privilegescomprising a maximum quantity value for products added to the order. Theorder sharing configuration may include sharing privileges comprising alimit associated with a brand name associated with a product added tothe order. The order sharing configuration may be received with theorder from the first user. The order sharing configuration may include adata structure for the shared order amongst a plurality of users sharingorder privileges. Order privileges for each of the plurality of usersmay be stored in separate data structures. Access to the separate datastructures may be provided through an access code. The data structuremay include tracking of order contributions for each of the plurality ofusers. The data structure may include tracking of order contributionsassociated with different product merchants. The order sharingconfiguration indication may indicate that changes to the order arepermitted from the second user prior to processing the order completionbased on the order sharing criterion. The order sharing criterion maylimit the second user to a monetary purchase value threshold for theorder and processing the order completion when the monetary purchasevalue threshold is met. The order sharing criterion may limit the seconduser to a time period delay between the received order and theprocessing of the order completion. The order sharing criterion maylimit the second user to a quantity threshold for the at least oneproduct. The order sharing criterion may limit the second user to aquantity threshold for total products comprising the order. The orderdeferment may be a delay in a payment processing and fulfillment of theorder until the order change is received from the second user. The orderdeferment may be a delay in an invoicing and fulfillment of the orderuntil the order change is received from the second user. The orderdeferment may be a delay in a payment processing until an ordercompletion criterion is met. The order completion criterion may be amonetary purchase value threshold for the order. The order completioncriterion may be a time period delay between the received order and theprocessing of the order completion. The order completion criterion maybe a quantity threshold for the at least one product. The ordercompletion criterion may be a quantity threshold for products comprisingthe order. The order change may be at least one of adding a product tothe order, deleting a product from the order, or changing a quantity fora product in the order. The order may be a new product order that is forat least one new product and processing the order completion comprisesan order fulfillment process. The order may be an exchange order forexchanging a first product for a second product and processing the ordercompletion comprises an exchange of product process. The order may be areturn order for returning a product and processing the order completioncomprises a product return process. The product may be a service to beprovided. The e-commerce order processor may provide a user interfacefor composing the order, presenting the order completion event, andproviding the order sharing criterion.

In an aspect, a system may include an e-commerce order processorconfigured to store a set of instructions that, when executed, cause thee-commerce order processor to: receive, at an e-commerce orderprocessor, an order from a first user comprising at least one product,wherein the order is received in conjunction with an order sharingconfiguration indication and in conjunction with an order completionevent; process an order deferment for the order based on an ordersharing criterion; receive an order change from a second user; andprocess an order completion based on the order sharing criterion. Inembodiments, the order sharing configuration indication may indicatethat order privileges for the order are shared with at least the seconduser based on an order sharing configuration. The order sharingconfiguration may include sharing privileges associated with adding,deleting, or changing quantities of products comprising the order. Theorder sharing configuration may include sharing privileges comprising amaximum monetary value for adding products to the order. The ordersharing configuration may include sharing privileges comprising amaximum quantity value for products added to the order. The ordersharing configuration may include sharing privileges comprising a limitassociated with a brand name associated with a product added to theorder. The order sharing configuration may be received with the orderfrom the first user. The order sharing configuration may include a datastructure for the shared order amongst a plurality of users sharingorder privileges. Order privileges for each of the plurality of usersmay be stored in separate data structures. Access to the separate datastructures may be provided through an access code. The data structuremay include tracking of order contributions for each of the plurality ofusers. The data structure may include tracking of order contributionsassociated with different product merchants. The order sharingconfiguration indication may indicate that changes to the order arepermitted from the second user prior to processing the order completionbased on the order sharing criterion. The order sharing criterion maylimit the second user to a monetary purchase value threshold for theorder and processing the order completion when the monetary purchasevalue threshold is met. The order sharing criterion may limit the seconduser to a time period delay between the received order and theprocessing of the order completion. The order sharing criterion maylimit the second user to a quantity threshold for the at least oneproduct. The order sharing criterion may limit the second user to aquantity threshold for total products comprising the order. The orderdeferment may be a delay in a payment processing and fulfillment of theorder until the order change is received from the second user. The orderdeferment may be a delay in an invoicing and fulfillment of the orderuntil the order change is received from the second user. The orderdeferment may be a delay in a payment processing until an ordercompletion criterion is met. The order completion criterion may be amonetary purchase value threshold for the order. The order completioncriterion may be a time period delay between the received order and theprocessing of the order completion. The order completion criterion maybe a quantity threshold for the at least one product. The ordercompletion criterion may be a quantity threshold for products comprisingthe order. The order change may be at least one of adding a product tothe order, deleting a product from the order, or changing a quantity fora product in the order. The order may be a new product order that is forat least one new product and processing the order completion comprisesan order fulfillment process. The order may be an exchange order forexchanging a first product for a second product and processing the ordercompletion comprises an exchange of product process. The order may be areturn order for returning a product and processing the order completioncomprises a product return process. The product may be a service to beprovided. The e-commerce order processor may provide a user interfacefor composing the order, presenting the order completion event, andproviding the order sharing criterion.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

FIG. 1 depicts an embodiment of an e-commerce platform.

FIG. 2 depicts an embodiment for a home page of an administrator.

FIG. 3 depicts an embodiment functional block diagram for an e-commerceplatform with order preference functionality.

FIG. 4 depicts an embodiment functional block diagram for an e-commerceplatform with order sharing functionality.

FIG. 5 depicts an embodiment for a user interface for order management.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present disclosure will now be described in detail by describingvarious illustrative, non-limiting embodiments thereof with reference tothe accompanying drawings and exhibits. The disclosure may, however, beembodied in many different forms and should not be construed as beinglimited to the illustrative embodiments set forth herein. Rather, theembodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough andwill fully convey the concept of the disclosure to those skilled in theart.

With reference to FIG. 1, an embodiment e-commerce platform 100 isdepicted for providing merchant products and services to customers.While the disclosure throughout contemplates using the apparatus,system, and process disclosed to purchase products and services, forsimplicity the description herein will refer to products. All referencesto products throughout this disclosure should also be understood to bereferences to products and/or services, including physical products,digital content, tickets, subscriptions, services to be provided, andthe like.

While the disclosure throughout contemplates that a ‘merchant’ and a‘customer’ may be more than individuals, for simplicity the descriptionherein may generally refer to merchants and customers as such. Allreferences to merchants and customers throughout this disclosure shouldalso be understood to be references to groups of individuals, companies,corporations, computing entities, and the like, and may representfor-profit or not-for-profit exchange of products. Further, while thedisclosure throughout refers to ‘merchants’ and ‘customers’, anddescribes their roles as such, the e-commerce platform 100 should beunderstood to more generally support users in an e-commerce environment,and all references to merchants and customers throughout this disclosureshould also be understood to be references to users, such as where auser is a merchant-user (e.g., a seller, retailer, wholesaler, orprovider of products), a customer-user (e.g., a buyer, purchase agent,or user of products), a prospective user (e.g., a user browsing and notyet committed to a purchase, a user evaluating the e-commerce platform100 for potential use in marketing and selling products, and the like),a service provider user (e.g., a shipping provider 112, a financialprovider, and the like), a company or corporate user (e.g., a companyrepresentative for purchase, sales, or use of products; an enterpriseuser; a customer relations or customer management agent, and the like),an information technology user, a computing entity user (e.g., acomputing bot for purchase, sales, or use of products), and the like.

The e-commerce platform 100 may provide a centralized system forproviding merchants with online resources and facilities for managingtheir business. The facilities described herein may be deployed in partor in whole through a machine that executes computer software, modules,program codes, and/or instructions on one or more processors which maybe part of or external to the platform 100. Merchants may utilize thee-commerce platform 100 for managing commerce with customers, such as byimplementing an e-commerce experience with customers through an onlinestore 138, through channels 110A-B, through POS devices 152 in physicallocations (e.g., a physical storefront or other location such as througha kiosk, terminal, reader, printer, 3D printer, and the like), bymanaging their business through the e-commerce platform 100, and byinteracting with customers through a communications facility 129 of thee-commerce platform 100, or any combination thereof. A merchant mayutilize the e-commerce platform 100 as a sole commerce presence withcustomers, or in conjunction with other merchant commerce facilities,such as through a physical store (e.g., ‘brick-and-mortar’ retailstores), a merchant off-platform website 104 (e.g., a commerce Internetwebsite or other internet or web property or asset supported by or onbehalf of the merchant separately from the e-commerce platform), and thelike. However, even these ‘other’ merchant commerce facilities may beincorporated into the e-commerce platform, such as where POS devices 152in a physical store of a merchant are linked into the e-commerceplatform 100, where a merchant off-platform website 104 is tied into thee-commerce platform 100, such as through ‘buy buttons’ that link contentfrom the merchant off platform website 104 to the online store 138, andthe like.

The online store 138 may represent a multitenant facility comprising aplurality of virtual storefronts. In embodiments, merchants may manageone or more storefronts in the online store 138, such as through amerchant device 102 (e.g., computer, laptop computer, mobile computingdevice, and the like), and offer products to customers through a numberof different channels 110A-B (e.g., an online store 138; a physicalstorefront through a POS device 152; electronic marketplace, through anelectronic buy button integrated into a website or social media channelsuch as on a social network, social media page, social media messagingsystem; and the like). A merchant may sell across channels 110A-B andthen manage their sales through the e-commerce platform 100, wherechannels 110A may be provided internal to the e-commerce platform 100 orfrom outside the e-commerce channel 110B. A merchant may sell in theirphysical retail store, at pop ups, through wholesale, over the phone,and the like, and then manage their sales through the e-commerceplatform 100. A merchant may employ all or any combination of these,such as maintaining a business through a physical storefront utilizingPOS devices 152, maintaining a virtual storefront through the onlinestore 138, and utilizing a communication facility 129 to leveragecustomer interactions and analytics 132 to improve the probability ofsales. Throughout this disclosure the terms online store 138 andstorefront may be used synonymously to refer to a merchant's onlinee-commerce offering presence through the e-commerce platform 100, wherean online store 138 may refer to the multitenant collection ofstorefronts supported by the e-commerce platform 100 (e.g., for aplurality of merchants) or to an individual merchant's storefront (e.g.,a merchant's online store).

In embodiments, a customer may interact through a customer device 150(e.g., computer, laptop computer, mobile computing device, and thelike), a POS device 152 (e.g., retail device, a kiosk, an automatedcheckout system, and the like), or any other commerce interface deviceknown in the art. The e-commerce platform 100 may enable merchants toreach customers through the online store 138, through POS devices 152 inphysical locations (e.g., a merchant's storefront or elsewhere), topromote commerce with customers through dialog via electroniccommunication facility 129, and the like, providing a system forreaching customers and facilitating merchant services for the real orvirtual pathways available for reaching and interacting with customers.

In embodiments, and as described further herein, the e-commerce platform100 may be implemented through a processing facility including aprocessor and a memory, the processing facility storing a set ofinstructions that, when executed, cause the e-commerce platform 100 toperform the e-commerce and support functions as described herein. Theprocessing facility may be part of a server, client, networkinfrastructure, mobile computing platform, cloud computing platform,stationary computing platform, or other computing platform, and provideelectronic connectivity and communications between and amongst theelectronic components of the e-commerce platform 100, merchant devices102, payment gateways 106, application developers, channels 110A-B,shipping providers 112, customer devices 150, point of sale devices 152,and the like. The e-commerce platform 100 may be implemented as a cloudcomputing service, a software as a service (SaaS), infrastructure as aservice (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), desktop as a Service(DaaS), managed software as a service (MSaaS), mobile backend as aservice (MBaaS), information technology management as a service(ITMaaS), and the like, such as in a software and delivery model inwhich software is licensed on a subscription basis and centrally hosted(e.g., accessed by users using a client (for example, a thin client) viaa web browser or other application, accessed through by POS devices, andthe like). In embodiments, elements of the e-commerce platform 100 maybe implemented to operate on various platforms and operating systems,such as iOS, Android, on the web, and the like (e.g., the administrator114 being implemented in multiple instances for a given online store foriOS, Android, and for the web, each with similar functionality).

In embodiments, the online store 138 may be served to a customer device150 through a webpage provided by a server of the e-commerce platform100. The server may receive a request for the webpage from a browser orother application installed on the customer device 150, where thebrowser (or other application) connects to the server through an IPAddress, the IP address obtained by translating a domain name. Inreturn, the server sends back the requested webpage. Webpages may bewritten in or include Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), templatelanguage, JavaScript, and the like, or any combination thereof. Forinstance, HTML is a computer language that describes static informationfor the webpage, such as the layout, format, and content of the webpage.Website designers and developers may use the template language to buildwebpages that combine static content, which is the same on multiplepages, and dynamic content, which changes from one page to the next. Atemplate language may make it possible to re-use the static elementsthat define the layout of a webpage, while dynamically populating thepage with data from an online store. The static elements may be writtenin HTML, and the dynamic elements written in the template language. Thetemplate language elements in a file may act as placeholders, such thatthe code in the file is compiled and sent to the customer device 150 andthen the template language is replaced by data from the online store138, such as when a theme is installed. The template and themes mayconsider tags, objects, and filters. The client device web browser (orother application) then renders the page accordingly.

In embodiments, online stores 138 may be served by the e-commerceplatform 100 to customers, where customers can browse and purchase thevarious products available (e.g., add them to a cart, purchaseimmediately through a buy-button, and the like). Online stores 138 maybe served to customers in a transparent fashion without customersnecessarily being aware that it is being provided through the e-commerceplatform 100 (rather than directly from the merchant). Merchants may usea merchant configurable domain name, a customizable HTML theme, and thelike, to customize their online store 138. Merchants may customize thelook and feel of their website through a theme system, such as wheremerchants can select and change the look and feel of their online store138 by changing their theme while having the same underlying product andbusiness data shown within the online store's product hierarchy. Themesmay be further customized through a theme editor, a design interfacethat enables users to customize their website's design with flexibility.Themes may also be customized using theme-specific settings that changeaspects, such as specific colors, fonts, and pre-built layout schemes.The online store may implement a content management system for websitecontent. Merchants may author blog posts or static pages and publishthem to their online store 138, such as through blogs, articles, and thelike, as well as configure navigation menus. Merchants may upload images(e.g., for products), video, content, data, and the like to thee-commerce platform 100, such as for storage by the system (e.g. as data134). In embodiments, the e-commerce platform 100 may provide functionsfor resizing images, associating an image with a product, adding andassociating text with an image, adding an image for a new productvariant, protecting images, and the like.

As described herein, the e-commerce platform 100 may provide merchantswith transactional facilities for products through a number of differentchannels 110A-B, including the online store 138, over the telephone, aswell as through physical POS devices 152 as described herein. Thee-commerce platform 100 may include business support services 116, anadministrator 114, and the like associated with running an on-linebusiness, such as providing a domain service 118 associated with theironline store, payment services 120 for facilitating transactions with acustomer, shipping services 122 for providing customer shipping optionsfor purchased products, risk and insurance services 124 associated withproduct protection and liability, merchant billing, and the like.Services 116 may be provided via the e-commerce platform 100 or inassociation with external facilities, such as through a payment gateway106 for payment processing, shipping providers 112 for expediting theshipment of products, and the like.

In embodiments, the e-commerce platform 100 may provide for integratedshipping services 122 (e.g., through an e-commerce platform shippingfacility or through a third-party shipping carrier), such as providingmerchants with real-time updates, tracking, automatic rate calculation,bulk order preparation, label printing, and the like.

FIG. 2 depicts a non-limiting embodiment for a home page of anadministrator 114, which may show information about daily tasks, astore's recent activity, and the next steps a merchant can take to buildtheir business. In embodiments, a merchant may log in to administrator114 via a merchant device 102 such as from a desktop computer or mobiledevice, and manage aspects of their online store 138, such as viewingthe online store's 138 recent activity, updating the online store's 138catalog, managing orders, recent visits activity, total orders activity,and the like. In embodiments, the merchant may be able to access thedifferent sections of administrator 114 by using the sidebar, such asshown on FIG. 2. Sections of the administrator 114 may include variousinterfaces for accessing and managing core aspects of a merchant'sbusiness, including orders, products, customers, available reports anddiscounts. The administrator 114 may also include interfaces formanaging sales channels for a store including the online store, mobileapplication(s) made available to customers for accessing the store(Mobile App), POS devices, and/or a buy button. The administrator 114may also include interfaces for managing applications (Apps) installedon the merchant's account; settings applied to a merchant's online store138 and account. A merchant may use a search bar to find products,pages, or other information. Depending on the device 102 or softwareapplication the merchant is using, they may be enabled for differentfunctionality through the administrator 114. For instance, if a merchantlogs in to the administrator 114 from a browser, they may be able tomanage all aspects of their online store 138. If the merchant logs infrom their mobile device (e.g. via a mobile application), they may beable to view all or a subset of the aspects of their online store 138,such as viewing the online store's 138 recent activity, updating theonline store's 138 catalog, managing orders, and the like.

More detailed information about commerce and visitors to a merchant'sonline store 138 may be viewed through acquisition reports or metrics,such as displaying a sales summary for the merchant's overall business,specific sales and engagement data for active sales channels, and thelike. Reports may include, acquisition reports, behavior reports,customer reports, finance reports, marketing reports, sales reports,custom reports, and the like. The merchant may be able to view salesdata for different channels 110A-B from different periods of time (e.g.,days, weeks, months, and the like), such as by using drop-down menus. Anoverview dashboard may be provided for a merchant that wants a moredetailed view of the store's sales and engagement data. An activity feedin the home metrics section may be provided to illustrate an overview ofthe activity on the merchant's account. For example, by clicking on a‘view all recent activity’ dashboard button, the merchant may be able tosee a longer feed of recent activity on their account. A home page mayshow notifications about the merchant's online store 138, such as basedon account status, growth, recent customer activity, and the like.Notifications may be provided to assist a merchant with navigatingthrough a process, such as capturing a payment, marking an order asfulfilled, archiving an order that is complete, and the like.

The e-commerce platform 100 may provide for a communications facility129 and associated merchant interface for providing electroniccommunications and marketing, such as utilizing an electronic messagingaggregation facility for collecting and analyzing communicationinteractions between merchants, customers, merchant devices 102,customer devices 150, POS devices 152, and the like, to aggregate andanalyze the communications, such as for increasing the potential forproviding a sale of a product, and the like. For instance, a customermay have a question related to a product, which may produce a dialogbetween the customer and the merchant (or automated processor-basedagent representing the merchant), where the communications facility 129analyzes the interaction and provides analysis to the merchant on how toimprove the probability for a sale.

The e-commerce platform 100 may provide a financial facility 120 forsecure financial transactions with customers, such as through a securecard server environment. The e-commerce platform 100 may store creditcard information, such as in payment card industry data (PCI)environments (e.g., a card server), to reconcile financials, billmerchants, perform automated clearing house (ACH) transfers between ane-commerce platform 100 financial institution account and a merchant'sback account (e.g., when using capital), and the like. These systems mayhave Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) compliance and a high level of diligencerequired in their development and operation. The financial facility 120may also provide merchants with financial support, such as through thelending of capital (e.g., lending funds, cash advances, and the like)and provision of insurance. In addition, the e-commerce platform 100 mayprovide for a set of marketing and partner services and control therelationship between the e-commerce platform 100 and partners. They alsomay connect and onboard new merchants with the e-commerce platform 100.These services may enable merchant growth by making it easier formerchants to work across the e-commerce platform 100. Through theseservices, merchants may be provided help facilities via the e-commerceplatform 100.

In embodiments, online store 138 may support a great number ofindependently administered storefronts and process a large volume oftransactional data on a daily basis for a variety of products.Transactional data may include customer contact information, billinginformation, shipping information, information on products purchased,information on services rendered, and any other information associatedwith business through the e-commerce platform 100. In embodiments, thee-commerce platform 100 may store this data in a data facility 134. Thetransactional data may be processed to produce analytics 132, which inturn may be provided to merchants or third-party commerce entities, suchas providing consumer trends, marketing and sales insights,recommendations for improving sales, evaluation of customer behaviors,marketing and sales modeling, trends in fraud, and the like, related toonline commerce, and provided through dashboard interfaces, throughreports, and the like. The e-commerce platform 100 may store informationabout business and merchant transactions, and the data facility 134 mayhave many ways of enhancing, contributing, refining, and extractingdata, where over time the collected data may enable improvements toaspects of the e-commerce platform 100.

Referring again to FIG. 1, in embodiments the e-commerce platform 100may be configured with a commerce management engine 136 for contentmanagement, task automation and data management to enable support andservices to the plurality of online stores 138 (e.g., related toproducts, inventory, customers, orders, collaboration, suppliers,reports, financials, risk and fraud, and the like), but be extensiblethrough applications 142A-B that enable greater flexibility and customprocesses required for accommodating an ever-growing variety of merchantonline stores, POS devices, products, and services, where applications142A may be provided internal to the e-commerce platform 100 orapplications 142B from outside the e-commerce platform 100. Inembodiments, an application 142A may be provided by the same partyproviding the platform 100 or by a different party. In embodiments, anapplication 142B may be provided by the same party providing theplatform 100 or by a different party. The commerce management engine 136may be configured for flexibility and scalability through portioning(e.g., sharding) of functions and data, such as by customer identifier,order identifier, online store identifier, and the like. The commercemanagement engine 136 may accommodate store-specific business logic andin some embodiments, may incorporate the administrator 114 and/or theonline store 138.

The commerce management engine 136 includes base or “core” functions ofthe e-commerce platform 100, and as such, as described herein, not allfunctions supporting online stores 138 may be appropriate for inclusion.For instance, functions for inclusion into the commerce managementengine 136 may need to exceed a core functionality threshold throughwhich it may be determined that the function is core to a commerceexperience (e.g., common to a majority of online store activity, such asacross channels, administrator interfaces, merchant locations,industries, product types, and the like), is re-usable across onlinestores 138 (e.g., functions that can be re-used/modified across corefunctions), limited to the context of a single online store 138 at atime (e.g., implementing an online store ‘isolation principle’, wherecode should not be able to interact with multiple online stores 138 at atime, ensuring that online stores 138 cannot access each other's data),provide a transactional workload, and the like. Maintaining control ofwhat functions are implemented may enable the commerce management engine136 to remain responsive, as many required features are either serveddirectly by the commerce management engine 136 or enabled through aninterface 140A-B, such as by its extension through an applicationprogramming interface (API) connection to applications 142A-B andchannels 110A-B, where interfaces 140A may be provided to applications142A and/or channels 110A inside the e-commerce platform 100 or throughinterfaces 140B provided to applications 142B and/or channels 110Boutside the e-commerce platform 100. Generally, the platform 100 mayinclude interfaces 140A-B (which may be extensions, connectors, APIs,and the like) which facilitate connections to and communications withother platforms, systems, software, data sources, code and the like.Such interfaces 140A-B may be an interface 140A of the commercemanagement engine 136 or an interface 140B of the platform 100 moregenerally. If care is not given to restricting functionality in thecommerce management engine 136, responsiveness could be compromised,such as through infrastructure degradation through slow databases ornon-critical backend failures, through catastrophic infrastructurefailure such as with a data center going offline, through new code beingdeployed that takes longer to execute than expected, and the like. Toprevent or mitigate these situations, the commerce management engine 136may be configured to maintain responsiveness, such as throughconfiguration that utilizes timeouts, queues, back-pressure to preventdegradation, and the like.

Although isolating online store data is important to maintaining dataprivacy between online stores 138 and merchants, there may be reasonsfor collecting and using cross-store data, such as for example, with anorder risk assessment system or a platform payment facility, both ofwhich require information from multiple online stores 138 to performwell. In embodiments, rather than violating the isolation principle, itmay be preferred to move these components out of the commerce managementengine 136 and into their own infrastructure within the e-commerceplatform 100.

In embodiments, the e-commerce platform 100 may provide for a platformpayment facility 120, which is another example of a component thatutilizes data from the commerce management engine 136 but may be locatedoutside so as to not violate the isolation principle. The platformpayment facility 120 may allow customers interacting with online stores138 to have their payment information stored safely by the commercemanagement engine 136 such that they only have to enter it once. When acustomer visits a different online store 138, even if they've never beenthere before, the platform payment facility 120 may recall theirinformation to enable a more rapid and correct check out. This mayprovide a cross-platform network effect, where the e-commerce platform100 becomes more useful to its merchants as more merchants join, such asbecause there are more customers who checkout more often because of theease of use with respect to customer purchases. To maximize the effectof this network, payment information for a given customer may beretrievable from an online store's checkout, allowing information to bemade available globally across online stores 138. It would be difficultand error prone for each online store 138 to be able to connect to anyother online store 138 to retrieve the payment information stored there.As a result, the platform payment facility may be implemented externalto the commerce management engine 136.

For those functions that are not included within the commerce managementengine 136, applications 142A-B provide a way to add features to thee-commerce platform 100. Applications 142A-B may be able to access andmodify data on a merchant's online store 138, perform tasks through theadministrator 114, create new flows for a merchant through a userinterface (e.g., that is surfaced through extensions/API), and the like.Merchants may be enabled to discover and install applications 142A-Bthrough application search, recommendations, and support 128. Inembodiments, core products, core extension points, applications, and theadministrator 114 may be developed to work together. For instance,application extension points may be built inside the administrator 114so that core features may be extended by way of applications, which maydeliver functionality to a merchant through the extension.

In embodiments, applications 142A-B may deliver functionality to amerchant through the interface 140A-B, such as where an application142A-B is able to surface transaction data to a merchant (e.g., App:“Engine, surface my app data in mobile and web admin using the embeddedapp SDK”), and/or where the commerce management engine 136 is able toask the application to perform work on demand (Engine: “App, give me alocal tax calculation for this checkout”).

Applications 142A-B may support online stores 138 and channels 110A-B,provide for merchant support, integrate with other services, and thelike. Where the commerce management engine 136 may provide thefoundation of services to the online store 138, the applications 142A-Bmay provide a way for merchants to satisfy specific and sometimes uniqueneeds. Different merchants will have different needs, and so may benefitfrom different applications 142A-B. Applications 142A-B may be betterdiscovered through the e-commerce platform 100 through development of anapplication taxonomy (categories) that enable applications to be taggedaccording to a type of function it performs for a merchant; throughapplication data services that support searching, ranking, andrecommendation models; through application discovery interfaces such asan application store, home information cards, an application settingspage; and the like.

Applications 142A-B may be connected to the commerce management engine136 through an interface 140A-B, such as utilizing APIs to expose thefunctionality and data available through and within the commercemanagement engine 136 to the functionality of applications (e.g.,through REST, GraphQL, and the like). For instance, the e-commerceplatform 100 may provide API interfaces 140A-B to merchant andpartner-facing products and services, such as including applicationextensions, process flow services, developer-facing resources, and thelike. With customers more frequently using mobile devices for shopping,applications 142A-B related to mobile use may benefit from moreextensive use of APIs to support the related growing commerce traffic.The flexibility offered through use of applications and APIs (e.g., asoffered for application development) enable the e-commerce platform 100to better accommodate new and unique needs of merchants (and internaldevelopers through internal APIs) without requiring constant change tothe commerce management engine 136, thus providing merchants what theyneed when they need it. For instance, shipping services 122 may beintegrated with the commerce management engine 136 through a shipping orcarrier service API, thus enabling the e-commerce platform 100 toprovide shipping service functionality without directly impacting coderunning in the commerce management engine 136.

Many merchant problems may be solved by letting partners improve andextend merchant workflows through application development, such asproblems associated with back-office operations (merchant-facingapplications 142A-B) and in the online store 138 (customer-facingapplications 142A-B). As a part of doing business, many merchants willuse mobile and web related applications on a daily basis for back-officetasks (e.g., merchandising, inventory, discounts, fulfillment, and thelike) and online store tasks (e.g., applications related to their onlineshop, for flash-sales, new product offerings, and the like), whereapplications 142A-B, through extension/API 140A-B, help make productseasy to view and purchase in a fast growing marketplace. In embodiments,partners, application developers, internal applications facilities, andthe like, may be provided with a software development kit (SDK), such asthrough creating a frame within the administrator 114 that sandboxes anapplication interface. In embodiments, the administrator 114 may nothave control over nor be aware of what happens within the frame. The SDKmay be used in conjunction with a user interface kit to produceinterfaces that mimic the look and feel of the e-commerce platform 100,such as acting as an extension of the commerce management engine 136.

Applications 142A-B that utilize APIs may pull data on demand, but oftenthey also need to have data pushed when updates occur. Update events maybe implemented in a subscription model, such as for example, customercreation, product changes, or order cancelation. Update events mayprovide merchants with needed updates with respect to a changed state ofthe commerce management engine 136, such as for synchronizing a localdatabase, notifying an external integration partner, and the like.Update events may enable this functionality without having to poll thecommerce management engine 136 all the time to check for updates, suchas through an update event subscription. In embodiments, when a changerelated to an update event subscription occurs, the commerce managementengine 136 may post a request, such as to a predefined callback URL. Thebody of this request may contain a new state of the object and adescription of the action or event. Update event subscriptions may becreated manually, in the administrator facility 114, or automatically(e.g., via the API 140A-B). In embodiments, update events may be queuedand processed asynchronously from a state change that triggered them,which may produce an update event notification that is not distributedin real-time.

In embodiments, the e-commerce platform 100 may provide applicationsearch, recommendation and support 128. Application search,recommendation and support 128 may include developer products and toolsto aid in the development of applications, an application dashboard(e.g., to provide developers with a development interface, toadministrators for management of applications, to merchants forcustomization of applications, and the like), facilities for installingand providing permissions with respect to providing access to anapplication 142A-B (e.g., for public access, such as where criteria mustbe met before being installed, or for private use by a merchant),application searching to make it easy for a merchant to search forapplications 142A-B that satisfy a need for their online store 138,application recommendations to provide merchants with suggestions on howthey can improve the user experience through their online store 138, adescription of core application capabilities within the commercemanagement engine 136, and the like. These support facilities may beutilized by application development performed by any entity, includingthe merchant developing their own application 142A-B, a third-partydeveloper developing an application 142A-B (e.g., contracted by amerchant, developed on their own to offer to the public, contracted foruse in association with the e-commerce platform 100, and the like), oran application 142A or 142B being developed by internal personalresources associated with the e-commerce platform 100. In embodiments,applications 142A-B may be assigned an application identifier (ID), suchas for linking to an application (e.g., through an API), searching foran application, making application recommendations, and the like.

The commerce management engine 136 may include base functions of thee-commerce platform 100 and expose these functions through APIs 140A-Bto applications 142A-B. The APIs 140A-B may enable different types ofapplications built through application development. Applications 142A-Bmay be capable of satisfying a great variety of needs for merchants butmay be grouped roughly into three categories: customer-facingapplications, merchant-facing applications, integration applications,and the like. Customer-facing applications 142A-B may include onlinestore 138 or channels 110A-B that are places where merchants can listproducts and have them purchased (e.g., the online store, applicationsfor flash sales (e.g., merchant products or from opportunistic salesopportunities from third-party sources), a mobile store application, asocial media channel, an application for providing wholesale purchasing,and the like). Merchant-facing applications 142A-B may includeapplications that allow the merchant to administer their online store138 (e.g., through applications related to the web or website or tomobile devices), run their business (e.g., through applications relatedto POS devices), to grow their business (e.g., through applicationsrelated to shipping (e.g., drop shipping), use of automated agents, useof process flow development and improvements), and the like. Integrationapplications may include applications that provide useful integrationsthat participate in the running of a business, such as shippingproviders 112 and payment gateways.

In embodiments, an application developer may use an application proxy tofetch data from an outside location and display it on the page of anonline store 138. Content on these proxy pages may be dynamic, capableof being updated, and the like. Application proxies may be useful fordisplaying image galleries, statistics, custom forms, and other kinds ofdynamic content. The core-application structure of the e-commerceplatform 100 may allow for an increasing number of merchant experiencesto be built in applications 142A-B so that the commerce managementengine 136 can remain focused on the more commonly utilized businesslogic of commerce.

The e-commerce platform 100 provides an online shopping experiencethrough a curated system architecture that enables merchants to connectwith customers in a flexible and transparent manner. A typical customerexperience may be better understood through an embodiment examplepurchase workflow, where the customer browses the merchant's products ona channel 110A-B, adds what they intend to buy to their cart, proceedsto checkout, and pays for the content of their cart resulting in thecreation of an order for the merchant. The merchant may then review andfulfill (or cancel) the order. The product is then delivered to thecustomer. If the customer is not satisfied, they might return theproducts to the merchant.

In an example embodiment, a customer may browse a merchant's products ona channel 110A-B. A channel 110A-B is a place where customers can viewand buy products. In embodiments, channels 110A-B may be modeled asapplications 142A-B (a possible exception being the online store 138,which is integrated within the commence management engine 136). Amerchandising component may allow merchants to describe what they wantto sell and where they sell it. The association between a product and achannel may be modeled as a product publication and accessed by channelapplications, such as via a product listing API. A product may have manyoptions, like size and color, and many variants that expand theavailable options into specific combinations of all the options, likethe variant that is extra-small and green, or the variant that is sizelarge and blue. Products may have at least one variant (e.g., a “defaultvariant” is created for a product without any options). To facilitatebrowsing and management, products may be grouped into collections,provided product identifiers (e.g., stock keeping unit (SKU)) and thelike. Collections of products may be built by either manuallycategorizing products into one (e.g., a custom collection), by buildingrulesets for automatic classification (e.g., a smart collection), andthe like. Products may be viewed as 2D images, 3D images, rotating viewimages, through a virtual or augmented reality interface, and the like.

In embodiments, the customer may add what they intend to buy to theircart (in an alternate embodiment, a product may be purchased directly,such as through a buy button as described herein). Customers may addproduct variants to their shopping cart. The shopping cart model may bechannel specific. The online store 138 cart may be composed of multiplecart line items, where each cart line item tracks the quantity for aproduct variant. Merchants may use cart scripts to offer specialpromotions to customers based on the content of their cart. Since addinga product to a cart does not imply any commitment from the customer orthe merchant, and the expected lifespan of a cart may be in the order ofminutes (not days), carts may be persisted to an ephemeral data store.

The customer then proceeds to checkout. A checkout component mayimplement a web checkout as a customer-facing order creation process. Acheckout API may be provided as a computer-facing order creation processused by some channel applications to create orders on behalf ofcustomers (e.g., for point of sale). Checkouts may be created from acart and record a customer's information such as email address, billing,and shipping details. On checkout, the merchant commits to pricing. Ifthe customer inputs their contact information but does not proceed topayment, the e-commerce platform 100 may provide an opportunity tore-engage the customer (e.g., in an abandoned checkout feature). Forthose reasons, checkouts can have much longer lifespans than carts(hours or even days) and are therefore persisted. Checkouts maycalculate taxes and shipping costs based on the customer's shippingaddress. Checkout may delegate the calculation of taxes to a taxcomponent and the calculation of shipping costs to a delivery component.A pricing component may enable merchants to create discount codes (e.g.,‘secret’ strings that when entered on the checkout apply new prices tothe items in the checkout). Discounts may be used by merchants toattract customers and assess the performance of marketing campaigns.Discounts and other custom price systems may be implemented on top ofthe same platform piece, such as through price rules (e.g., a set ofprerequisites that when met imply a set of entitlements). For instance,prerequisites may be items such as “the order subtotal is greater than$100” or “the shipping cost is under $10”, and entitlements may be itemssuch as “a 20% discount on the whole order” or “$10 off products X, Y,and Z”.

Customers then pay for the content of their cart resulting in thecreation of an order for the merchant. Channels 110A-B may use thecommerce management engine 136 to move money, currency or a store ofvalue (such as dollars or a cryptocurrency) to and from customers andmerchants. Communication with the various payment providers (e.g.,online payment systems, mobile payment systems, digital wallet, creditcard gateways, and the like) may be implemented within a paymentprocessing component. The actual interactions with the payment gateways106 may be provided through a card server environment. In embodiments,the payment gateway 106 may accept international payment, such asintegrating with leading international credit card processors. The cardserver environment may include a card server application, card sink,hosted fields, and the like. This environment may act as the securegatekeeper of the sensitive credit card information. In embodiments,most of the process may be orchestrated by a payment processing job. Thecommerce management engine 136 may support many other payment methods,such as through an offsite payment gateway 106 (e.g., where the customeris redirected to another website), manually (e.g., cash), online paymentmethods (e.g., online payment systems, mobile payment systems, digitalwallet, credit card gateways, and the like), gift cards, and the like.At the end of the checkout process, an order is created. An order is acontract of sale between the merchant and the customer where themerchant agrees to provide the goods and services listed on the orders(e.g., order line items, shipping line items, and the like) and thecustomer agrees to provide payment (including taxes). This process maybe modeled in a sales component. Channels 110A-B that do not rely oncommerce management engine 136 checkouts may use an order API to createorders. Once an order is created, an order confirmation notification maybe sent to the customer and an order placed notification sent to themerchant via a notification component. Inventory may be reserved when apayment processing job starts to avoid over-selling (e.g., merchants maycontrol this behavior from the inventory policy of each variant).Inventory reservation may have a short time span (minutes) and may needto be very fast and scalable to support flash sales (e.g., a discount orpromotion offered for a short time, such as targeting impulse buying).The reservation is released if the payment fails. When the paymentsucceeds, and an order is created, the reservation is converted into along-term inventory commitment allocated to a specific location. Aninventory component may record where variants are stocked, and tracksquantities for variants that have inventory tracking enabled. It maydecouple product variants (a customer facing concept representing thetemplate of a product listing) from inventory items (a merchant facingconcept that represent an item whose quantity and location is managed).An inventory level component may keep track of quantities that areavailable for sale, committed to an order or incoming from an inventorytransfer component (e.g., from a vendor).

The merchant may then review and fulfill (or cancel) the order. A reviewcomponent may implement a business process merchant's use to ensureorders are suitable for fulfillment before actually fulfilling them.Orders may be fraudulent, require verification (e.g., ID checking), havea payment method which requires the merchant to wait to make sure theywill receive their funds, and the like. Risks and recommendations may bepersisted in an order risk model. Order risks may be generated from afraud detection tool, submitted by a third-party through an order riskAPI, and the like. Before proceeding to fulfillment, the merchant mayneed to capture the payment information (e.g., credit card information)or wait to receive it (e.g., via a bank transfer, check, and the like)and mark the order as paid. The merchant may now prepare the productsfor delivery. In embodiments, this business process may be implementedby a fulfillment component. The fulfillment component may group the lineitems of the order into a logical fulfillment unit of work based on aninventory location and fulfillment service. The merchant may review,adjust the unit of work, and trigger the relevant fulfillment services,such as through a manual fulfillment service (e.g., at merchant managedlocations) used when the merchant picks and packs the products in a box,purchase a shipping label and input its tracking number, or just markthe item as fulfilled. A custom fulfillment service may send an email(e.g., a location that doesn't provide an API connection). An APIfulfillment service may trigger a third party, where the third-partyapplication creates a fulfillment record. A legacy fulfillment servicemay trigger a custom API call from the commerce management engine 136 toa third party (e.g., fulfillment by Amazon). A gift card fulfillmentservice may provision (e.g., generating a number) and activate a giftcard. Merchants may use an order printer application to print packingslips. The fulfillment process may be executed when the items are packedin the box and ready for shipping, shipped, tracked, delivered, verifiedas received by the customer, and the like.

If the customer is not satisfied, they may be able to return theproduct(s) to the merchant. The business process merchants may gothrough to “un-sell” an item may be implemented by a return component.Returns may consist of a variety of different actions, such as arestock, where the product that was sold actually comes back into thebusiness and is sellable again; a refund, where the money that wascollected from the customer is partially or fully returned; anaccounting adjustment noting how much money was refunded (e.g.,including if there was any restocking fees, or goods that weren'treturned and remain in the customer's hands); and the like. A return mayrepresent a change to the contract of sale (e.g., the order), and wherethe e-commerce platform 100 may make the merchant aware of complianceissues with respect to legal obligations (e.g., with respect to taxes).In embodiments, the e-commerce platform 100 may enable merchants to keeptrack of changes to the contract of sales over time, such as implementedthrough a sales model component (e.g., an append-only date-based ledgerthat records sale-related events that happened to an item).

In embodiments, the e-commerce platform 100 may provide customers, ormore generally users, with the ability to make orders for products andservices through online stores 138, such as through a customer device150 and in conjunction with e-commerce services 116, payment gateway106, shipping providers 112, and the like. In embodiments, a user mayplace an order, make payment, and receive the order through shipping. Inembodiments, an order may be placed offline, such as in a physicalretail location or by telephone and products and services may bereceived without shipping.

In online commerce, once an order is paid for or completed it isdifficult to alter aspects of the ordering process, such as makingfurther changes to the order, collaborating on the order, sharing theorder, changing the order configuration, and the like. For instance,online commerce orders are tied to a particular buyer and it is notpossible to have multiple users collaborate in respect of an orderwithout sharing access credentials across users which often results insharing sensitive information, such as payment information. Further,orders that are draft orders (e.g., items in a shopping cart but withouta payment commitment) may be changed at will, but orders after a paymentcommitment are not able to be left open to change. As such, there is aneed to assist in allowing orders to be revised once a paymentcommitment has been made or the order has been completed and to allowcollaboration across multiple users in respect of an order.

In embodiments, the e-commerce platform 100 may provide for an orderthat is a dynamic order for requesting products to be supplied, where adynamic order enables a user to place an order while maintaining theability to edit the order within a set of order completion criteria,such as set by the user. A dynamic order (hereafter referred to simplyas an order) may involve the purchase, payment or authorization forpayment for a product (e.g., to reserve or guarantee supply of aproduct), with the order remaining open to edits to allow for changes tothe order, such as changes to existing products included in the orderand/or adding new products. An order may be a running order for which apurchase or payment has not yet been made, a list of products (e.g., aslisted in a shopping cart) before a purchase or order is formalized, forproducts from a single merchant or across multiple merchants (e.g., withmerchant permission), and the like. For instance, an order may be wherepayment has been made or authorized, but where the order remains openand can be changed, such as before the order is closed. In this way apayment may be processed but where the order is left editable, creatingan open order state of the order status enabling the user to edit theorder after a payment has been processed and allowing for a secondarypayment or refund event in case the edit has a different cost associatedwith the change (e.g., secondary payment if the cost has increased as aresult of edits or a refund if the cost has decreased as the result ofedits). In embodiments, multiple subsequent payment or refund events maybe processed during the open order, such as when multiple edits to theopen order are made that increase or decrease the cost of the order(e.g., an initial payment followed by an edit that increases costresulting in a secondary payment, followed by a new edit that decreasescost resulting in a refund, and so on). For the purposes of thisdisclosure, an ‘open’ order is an order for which a user has provided apayment commitment for the products in the order (e.g., a user hassubmitted payment for the order or payment has been authorized), an‘order completion criterion’ is a condition for deferring the completionof the order (e.g., the user wants to delay shipment of the order togive the user (and/or others through a shared order) an opportunity tochange the order after the payment commitment), and a ‘closed’ order isan order that may not be further changed such as when the ordercompletion criterion has been met (e.g., after a specified period oftime after the order was opened a final invoice is generated and theproduct is shipped). Although embodiments described herein may apply toa ‘draft’ order, such as where a shopper is filling a shopping cart withno commitment to paying, an open order as described herein may requiresome form of financial commitment. For instance, a user may first placeproducts in a shopping cart before committing to payment (e.g.,maintaining a draft order), and then make a payment commitment inassociation with at least one order completion criterion (e.g., makingthe order an ‘open’ order in association an order completion criterion),where the order closes once the order completion criterion is met (e.g.,a user specifies a time delay after payment commitment where once thedelay is over the order closes and a final invoice is generated and theproduct ships). In embodiments, an order completion criterion may be setby the user, by other authorized users, and the like. Further, thee-commerce platform may set an order completion criterion, such as wherethe e-commerce platform 100 learns the preferences for a user (or users)over time, such as through machine learning. For example, the e-commerceplatform 100 may learn that a user always makes changes and was denied achange because the order was already closed, so the e-commerce platform100 sets an order completion criterion to allow more changes (e.g.,without explicit instructions from the user, but learned through machinelearning).

In embodiments, a user (e.g., a buyer) may specify preferences orconfigure settings in respect of an order, such as regarding keeping anorder open, allowing changes to be made to an order (e.g., includingafter payment has been made on an order) and sharing of an order withother users. An order as such is different from a traditional shoppingcart purchase model, where an order as described herein may enable auser (or group of users) to continue changing the order (e.g., saving,editing, and/or sharing the order) even after a purchase commitment hasbeen made (e.g., where payment has been made or authorized), and where asecondary payment(s) or refund(s) are permitted if the edits change thecosts from the initial payment. Further, the user may be allowed to setorder preferences with settings to control certain parameters of anorder (e.g. a completed or authorized transaction in relation to atleast one product) in a way that allows different types of edits by theuser before the order (or parts thereof) is actually fulfilled and/orshipped. In embodiments, order preferences may be applied to one order,to many orders, set as default for all orders, and the like. Forexample, order preferences may include a completion criterion for a timeperiod after the start of an order to the close of the order (e.g.,close order 5 days after the start of the order), for when after thestart of an order to make final payment (e.g., the order is started withan order of at least one product along with a purchase authorization,but where the actual transaction is not completed (e.g. paymentauthorized or completed for the product) or final purchase receipt isnot generated until the order includes ‘X’ number of order items), whenafter the start of an order before products are shipped (e.g., purchasedproducts are not shipped until the total cost of the order has reached apurchase threshold), and the like. The completion criterion may be basedon time (e.g., hours, days, or weeks), number of changes to the order(e.g., number of additions to the order), total cost amounts (e.g.,total cost amount associated with changes to the order, total cost ofthe order, or cost of a sub-group of the order), and the like. Thecompletion criterion may be a financial limit set for an order, such asan upper or lower dollar amount for an order or for a particular productor type or category of product(s). In this way, order preferences mayfunction to set a budget for the order. In embodiments, a user may setcost limits through order preferences for orders categorized by time(e.g., all orders made in a given month), products (e.g., order itemsrelated to office supplies), users (e.g., for a particular employee of acompany through which the order is being placed), and the like. Inembodiments, order preferences may be shared, such as with which otherusers to the share the order with and what each user may be able to doin respect of the order.

In embodiments, changes to an order may include different types ofedits, such as adding or removing products and/or product variants,changing the number of products or quantities of a given product in theorder, changing or adding customization features associated with aproduct, adding/removing recipients or buyers (e.g., changing paymentsor shipping destinations), and the like. Benefits associated withproviding users with the ability to control changes to an order mayinclude extending a fulfillment timeline for an order (e.g., providing‘X’ number of days after an order has been placed in which the user canchange the order without affecting shipping (and need for returns)),pushing out the shipping date artificially (e.g., deferring shipping asa preference), setting a maximum or minimum order amount to allow forexpected changes (e.g., placing an order for $800 but allowing the orderto be changed to a maximum of $1000), making customizations to productsordered by the user or other authorized order editors (e.g., placing anorder along with a payment but allowing for a period of time in which asecond user can customize the order, products in the order, or groups ofproducts in the order), and the like.

Referring to FIG. 3, the e-commerce platform 100 may provide for anorder processor 302 that receives an order in conjunction with an ordercompletion event (e.g., an order payment, authorization for payment,payment offer for fulfillment, and the like), where as a result theorder is kept as an open order 306 allowing a user to make changes tothe order until an order completion 308 (e.g., when the order isinvoiced, fulfilled, packed, shipped, and the like). Keeping the orderopen may be provided through an order completion criterion stored inorder preferences 304, where an order completion criterion may be acondition or set of conditions that a user specifies in orderpreferences 304 to keep the order open even after an order completionevent. For example, a user may place an order and make payment (e.g.,the order completion event), but if the user has set an order completioncriterion that specifies the order should be kept open (e.g., notfulfilled, invoiced, shipped, and the like) until three days after theorder was initially placed, the user will maintain the ability to changethe order over those intervening days (e.g., even though payment hasbeen received for the initial order).

An order completion criterion may be time based (e.g., a time perioddelay between the received order and the processing of the ordercompletion), cost based (e.g., monetary purchase value threshold for theorder), quantity based (e.g., quantity threshold for at least oneproduct or a quantity threshold for products comprising the totalorder), change based (e.g., number of changes made to the order), andthe like. Based on the order completion criterion, the order processor302 may process an order deferment for the order, where an orderdeferment may be a delay in a payment processing and fulfillment of theorder, a delay in an invoicing and fulfillment of the order, a delay inshipping the order, and the like. In embodiments, the processing of theorder deferment may be pre-processed with respect to the time forreceiving the order. During the order deferment a user (or users) maymake changes to the order, such as adding a product to the order,deleting a product from the order, changing a quantity for a product inthe order, and the like. The order processor 302 may then process anorder completion based on the order completion criterion. Inembodiments, an order completion may be processed in the absence ofreceiving an order change, such as after a predetermined period of time.In embodiments, the order may be a purchase of a new product, anexchange order for exchanging a first product for a second product, areturn order for returning a product, and the like.

In a non-limiting embodiment process flow, in a first step 310 an orderpreference may be set including a completion criterion (which may bepre-processed and stored prior to the receiving of an order or receivedat the time of the order); in a second step 312 an order may be placedin conjunction with an order completion event; in a third step 314 anorder completion may be deferred based on the completion criterion; in afourth step 316 an order change may be received; and in a fifth step 318completion of order may be made based on the completion criterion.

In embodiments, order privileges and functionality may be shared betweenmultiple users (e.g., buyer, customer, merchant, merchant staff,employees of a company, friends, family, club members, and the like),such as through a shared access and collaborative settings associatedwith an order, where sharing access may be provided by one or more ofthe users (e.g., one or more users have control of who gets sharedaccess to an order, and what permissions each user is granted).Permissions and conditional access may be provided to a user, group ofusers, category or type of user, and the like. Access to an order may beprovided to certain aspects of an order or allow shared users to makecertain kinds of changes. For example, shared access may not allow acertain user to see or change payment information, such as payment cardinformation, but another user may be in a manager category and havepermission to view and change payment card information.

In embodiments, collaborative settings may be associated with whetherusers with shared order access are able to process, add, delete, and thelike, products of certain types (e.g., within product classifications ofproducts already on the order), prohibited products or types of products(e.g., controlled goods such as alcohol or firearms), products ofcertain sources or brands (e.g., products from a particular merchant),and the like. Collaborative settings may determine certain productscannot be removed from an order (or other aspects of an order thatcannot be changed by others), limit dollar amounts for products, specifytypes of products or overall category for order, limit the quantity ofproducts (e.g., a limit on the total number of products overall or onthe total number of products of a certain type), and the like.Collaborative settings may have a combination of settings and factorsthat apply together (e.g., a user restricted to adding only shoes in anorder and if purchased from merchant ‘A’ then must be of brand ‘X’ andup to two pairs, and if purchased from merchant ‘B’ then can be anybrand and up to one pair).

Shared order privileges may enable many users to collaborate on an orderand place the order together. As such, a purchase situation where, froma merchant's perspective it is a single order, is from a user's/buyer'sperspective actually multiple individuals involved. For instance, abusiness may authorize specific employees to be able to work on a largeorder, parents may buy things for their children where the children maywant to modify/add to the purchase, a group/party of people buyingsomething from a service provider (e.g., entertainment, lodging,transportation and the like, especially if there is a mix of servicesand products), an interior designer working with clients to purchasefurniture, and the like. In general, shared order privileges may benefita situation where an order can be open-ended with the possibility ofmultiple people being involved.

Referring to FIG. 4, the e-commerce platform 100 may provide for anorder processor 302 that receives an order from a first user, where theorder is received in conjunction with an indication that the order is tobe processed with respect to an order sharing configuration (e.g., ordersharing privileges associated with the different users), such as betweenthe first user and at least a second user. The order sharingconfiguration may be stored as a part of order preferences 304,pre-processed before the order is received, received at the time of theorder, and the like. The order may then be kept as an open order 306,such as to allow for the different users to change the order (e.g.,adding, editing, deleting aspects of the order), before ordercompletion. In embodiments, the order may be kept open based on a userdirection or based on a stored order preference. Alternately, inembodiments, the order may be received in conjunction with an ordercompletion event, where an order deferment may be determined bypreferences stored in order preferences (e.g., as part of order sharingcriterion, order completion criterion, and the like).

In embodiments, an order sharing configuration may include sharingprivileges such as a maximum monetary value for adding products to theorder, a maximum quantity value for products added to the order, a limitassociated with a brand name associated with a product added to theorder, and the like. The order sharing configuration may be receivedwith the order from the first user or may be set more generally. Theorder sharing configuration may indicate that changes to the order arepermitted from a second user prior to processing the order completionbased on the order sharing criterion.

In embodiments, an order sharing criterion may limit a user to amonetary purchase value threshold for the order and processing the ordercompletion when the monetary purchase value threshold is met, limit auser to a time period delay between the received order and theprocessing of the order completion, limit a user to a quantity thresholdfor a product, limit a user to a quantity threshold for total productscomprising the order, where a user may change the order within theconstraints determined through the order sharing criterion, such aswhere the order change is adding a product to the order, deleting aproduct from the order, changing a quantity for a product in the order,and the like. In embodiments, order sharing may be applied to a neworder, an exchange order, a returning order, and the like. Inembodiments, the order sharing criterion may be used instead of or incombination with the order sharing configuration. In embodiments, theorder sharing criterion and/or order sharing configuration may include aconfiguration setting to process the order completion if no orderchanges have been detected for a (configurable) period of time.

In a non-limiting embodiment process flow, in a first step 410 a firstuser may set order preferences including an order sharing criterion, ina second step 412 the first user may place an order in conjunction withan order sharing configuration indication. In embodiments, the secondstep 412 may precede the first step 410. In a third step 414 the seconduser may change the order, and in a fifth step 416 the order may becompleted (e.g. when order changes have been detected or after a periodof time if no changes have been detected).

In embodiments, shared order information for multiple users of a sharedorder may be stored in a shared data structure, such as to store orprovide pointers to permissions granted to each of the multiple users(e.g., each user associated with an account or user ID). In embodiments,the shared data structure may enable the tracking of order items in theorder with an audit log for each order item (e.g., for tracking whichuser ordered or changed (including when) different order items). Forinstance, the shared data structure for a user may keep track of whatitems the user ordered, from what merchants, in what quantities, and thelike. For this information analytics may be used to determine how a userplaces orders, such as with regard to timing of the order, timing ofchanges to the order, pricing of order items relative to ordercriterion, and the like. In embodiments, the shared data structure mayhave a hierarchical structure that maintains shared user data based onorders, merchants, products, and the like. For instance, the shared datastructure may enable tracking order data across multiple merchants foran order, across orders, with respect to individual users, and the like.In embodiments, in such hierarchical structure for tracking acrossmerchants the order entity may be higher than the merchant entity.

In an example embodiment, a user may be a personal or virtual shopper(also referred to as a personal virtual shopper herein), who has abusiness shopping on behalf of someone else (e.g., a person whooutsources shopping or certain aspects of shopping to the personalvirtual shopper). As a business model, the personal virtual shopper mayneed to optimize orders across a group of clients, where the personalvirtual shopper may be buying for many different clients on a singleorder, so there is a need to have order preferences that allows them todo that. For instance, the personal virtual shopper may keep an orderopen when buying many T-shirts across several different clients, sothere is an advantage to not closing the order until the need for allclients is met. Further, the personal virtual shopper may want to workwith a client on an order, such as sharing with the client what has beenordered or sharing order privileges with the client on the order. Inthis instance, the personal virtual shopper may start the order and thenshare privileges with the client so that the personal virtual shopperand the client may collaborate on the order. In another instance, theclient may start the order and then (e.g., realizing there is not enoughtime to complete the shopping) shares the order with the personalvirtual shopper, where again, the personal virtual shopper and theclient may then collaborate on the order, such as where the personalvirtual shopper is able to change the order within pre-set limits (viaorder preferences), but may not be able to view payment card details orcomplete the order.

In an example embodiment, a user may be an employee of a businessordering supplies, parts, components, inventory, and the like. In thisinstance, an owner (or manager or senior member) of a business may startan order (e.g., make an initial payment commitment) and then share theorder with certain staff. The staff may then fine tune the order, suchas changing products within product categories and quantities of theorder within set limits determined in order preferences (e.g., the staffdo not see the credit card/payment information, can only add certaintypes of products or make certain changes). In the instance where thecosts change from the initial payment commitment, a subsequentpayment(s) or refund(s) may be made that adjusts the cost of the order.

In an example embodiment, a group of users (e.g., friends, family orsocial group) may collaborate on the order and place the order together.For example, to obtain a volume discount, the group of users may setorder preferences so that the order does not close unless the orderreaches a threshold needed in terms of volume. The group of users maythen set payment options to split the final costs amongst them. Further,a discount may be applied retroactively based on the volume levelobtained, even after payment is made (e.g., as a refund).

In an example embodiment, a group of users may be a wedding partysharing the responsibilities of ordering supplies for a reception. Thewedding party may be working alone or in conjunction with a professionalwedding planner, but in both instances there may be benefits tocontrolling ordering privileges amongst the wedding party members (e.g.,some members have financial control of payment methods, some are onlyordering, groups within the wedding party may need to be controlledbased on cost and volumes, and the like) and/or sharing the orderingamongst them (e.g., all members get to view the order, some members getto view the entire order and others only viewing categories, some haveviewing privileges and some viewing and ordering privileges, and thelike).

In an example embodiment, a group of users may be members in a family,such as where parents are ordering clothes, school supplies, food, andthe like, and sharing the order with their children (and personalshopper(s), housekeepers, and the like). In this instance, control ofordering privileges for the children may exclude payment control, limitquantities and types of products, limit costs of products, place limitsor preferences on brand names, and the like, while the adults havegreater control. An order may be set to close at the end of the week forweekly food shopping, at the end of the summer for back-to-school items,a certain number of days prior to an event based on shipping timerequirements, and the like. Benefits for utilizing order preferences maynot only enable control of an order, but also may have the advantagethat placing an order and making say an initial payment (e.g., at thestart of the order, at each change of the order) may enable locking inthe availability for a product. For instance, during back-to-schoolshopping the children may have anxiety about items going out of stock asthe summer ends while their parents are not yet ready to close theorder, but in making payment commitments along the way the ordered itemsmay be reserved as they are ordered, and thus the users gain theadvantage of reserving stock but still may only need to receive a singleinvoice when the order closes, where the final invoice may representsubsequent payment(s)/refund(s) if costs for the order changed while theorder was open.

In an example embodiment, a user may be an interior designer workingwith owners of a house, such as where the interior designer and ownersall have shared access to the order. There may be order preferences withrespect to cost control with respect to a budget on the interior designproject, such as set and agreed upon prior to initiating the order,adjusted by the owners during the process of building the order, and thelike. Purchase commitments made during the process (e.g., an initialorder payment) may reserve certain items that may have long lead times,limited stock, and the like. A total view of the order by all members ofthe project may better enable all parties to understand the status ofthe project, components making up the current state of the interiordesign, costs associated with different items relative to the overallbudget, and the like, prior to closing the order (e.g., a subsequentpayment or refund event(s) if costs associated with the order havechanged while the order was open) and committing to the next steps inthe process.

Referring to FIG. 5, in embodiments a user interface 500 may be providedby the order processor 302, such as to provide a user with the abilityto place an order through the order processor 302 in conjunction withsubmitting an indication of order completion (e.g., payment submissionor authorization), where the user is able to continue editing the order(e.g., adding items, deleting items, editing items, and the like) aftercompleting the order, as well as other details associated with theorder, such as changing shipping details, updating orders with respectto discounts, adjusting payment terms, and the like. The user interface500 may display an order listing that updates as the user (or users)edit the order, such as to show the current state of the order. Further,the user interface 500 may provide an interface through which a user isable to enter order preferences, such as order criteria, order sharingcriteria, and the like as described herein, as well as display criteriaindicators such as for individual order items, groups of order items,for the overall order, and the like. For instance, an order completioncriteria may restrict the cost of individual order items where thecriteria indicator displays the cost of the order item along with theorder completion criteria limit (e.g., product cost $150/cost limit$200), an order completion criteria may restrict the cost of the totalorder and display the cost of the total order along with the ordercompletion criteria limit (e.g., current order cost $500/order limit$1000), an order sharing criteria may restrict an individual user toitems from a certain merchant or group of merchants along with the ordersharing criteria limit and display that user's merchant restrictionsalong with the merchant associated with the order item (e.g., user A isallowed to purchase from ‘X’ or ‘Y’ vendors/purchase is from ‘X’vendor), and the like. Providing the user interface 500 to the user mayenable the user to manage the order more effectively, such as throughproviding a view of the current state of the order along withindications of how the order preferences are being used. For instance,after observing the effectiveness of a current set of order preferences,a user (e.g., lead purchaser, administrator, manager, and the like) mayalter the order preferences to increase order management effectiveness.For example, changing a preferred time from initial order and payment towhen an order actually ships based on observing the dates and times auser typically makes changes to the order (e.g., decreasing thepreferred time from 7 days to 3 days because the user is making allorder changes within the first two days of the initial order).

The methods and systems described herein may be deployed in part or inwhole through a machine that executes computer software, program codes,and/or instructions on a processor. The processor may be part of aserver, cloud server, client, network infrastructure, mobile computingplatform, stationary computing platform, or other computing platform. Aprocessor may be any kind of computational or processing device capableof executing program instructions, codes, binary instructions and thelike. The processor may be or include a signal processor, digitalprocessor, embedded processor, microprocessor or any variant such as aco-processor (math co-processor, graphic co-processor, communicationco-processor and the like) and the like that may directly or indirectlyfacilitate execution of program code or program instructions storedthereon. In addition, the processor may enable execution of multipleprograms, threads, and codes. The threads may be executed simultaneouslyto enhance the performance of the processor and to facilitatesimultaneous operations of the application. By way of implementation,methods, program codes, program instructions and the like describedherein may be implemented in one or more thread. The thread may spawnother threads that may have assigned priorities associated with them;the processor may execute these threads based on priority or any otherorder based on instructions provided in the program code. The processormay include memory that stores methods, codes, instructions and programsas described herein and elsewhere. The processor may access a storagemedium through an interface that may store methods, codes, andinstructions as described herein and elsewhere. The storage mediumassociated with the processor for storing methods, programs, codes,program instructions or other type of instructions capable of beingexecuted by the computing or processing device may include but may notbe limited to one or more of a CD-ROM, DVD, memory, hard disk, flashdrive, RAM, ROM, cache and the like.

A processor may include one or more cores that may enhance speed andperformance of a multiprocessor. In embodiments, the process may be adual core processor, quad core processors, other chip-levelmultiprocessor and the like that combine two or more independent cores(called a die).

The methods and systems described herein may be deployed in part or inwhole through a machine that executes computer software on a server,cloud server, client, firewall, gateway, hub, router, or other suchcomputer and/or networking hardware. The software program may beassociated with a server that may include a file server, print server,domain server, internet server, intranet server and other variants suchas secondary server, host server, distributed server and the like. Theserver may include one or more of memories, processors, computerreadable media, storage media, ports (physical and virtual),communication devices, and interfaces capable of accessing otherservers, clients, machines, and devices through a wired or a wirelessmedium, and the like. The methods, programs or codes as described hereinand elsewhere may be executed by the server. In addition, other devicesrequired for execution of methods as described in this application maybe considered as a part of the infrastructure associated with theserver.

The server may provide an interface to other devices including, withoutlimitation, clients, other servers, printers, database servers, printservers, file servers, communication servers, distributed servers andthe like. Additionally, this coupling and/or connection may facilitateremote execution of program across the network. The networking of someor all of these devices may facilitate parallel processing of a programor method at one or more location without deviating from the scope ofthe disclosure. In addition, any of the devices attached to the serverthrough an interface may include at least one storage medium capable ofstoring methods, programs, code and/or instructions. A centralrepository may provide program instructions to be executed on differentdevices. In this implementation, the remote repository may act as astorage medium for program code, instructions, and programs.

The software program may be associated with a client that may include afile client, print client, domain client, internet client, intranetclient and other variants such as secondary client, host client,distributed client and the like. The client may include one or more ofmemories, processors, computer readable media, storage media, ports(physical and virtual), communication devices, and interfaces capable ofaccessing other clients, servers, machines, and devices through a wiredor a wireless medium, and the like. The methods, programs or codes asdescribed herein and elsewhere may be executed by the client. Inaddition, other devices required for execution of methods as describedin this application may be considered as a part of the infrastructureassociated with the client.

The client may provide an interface to other devices including, withoutlimitation, servers, other clients, printers, database servers, printservers, file servers, communication servers, distributed servers andthe like. Additionally, this coupling and/or connection may facilitateremote execution of program across the network. The networking of someor all of these devices may facilitate parallel processing of a programor method at one or more location without deviating from the scope ofthe disclosure. In addition, any of the devices attached to the clientthrough an interface may include at least one storage medium capable ofstoring methods, programs, applications, code and/or instructions. Acentral repository may provide program instructions to be executed ondifferent devices. In this implementation, the remote repository may actas a storage medium for program code, instructions, and programs.

The methods and systems described herein may be deployed in part or inwhole through network infrastructures. The network infrastructure mayinclude elements such as computing devices, servers, routers, hubs,firewalls, clients, personal computers, communication devices, routingdevices and other active and passive devices, modules and/or componentsas known in the art. The computing and/or non-computing device(s)associated with the network infrastructure may include, apart from othercomponents, a storage medium such as flash memory, buffer, stack, RAM,ROM and the like. The processes, methods, program codes, instructionsdescribed herein and elsewhere may be executed by one or more of thenetwork infrastructural elements.

The methods, program codes, and instructions described herein andelsewhere may be implemented in different devices which may operate inwired or wireless networks. Examples of wireless networks include 4^(th)Generation (4G) networks (e.g. Long Term Evolution (LTE)) or 5^(th)Generation (5G) networks, as well as non-cellular networks such asWireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). However, the principles describedtherein may equally apply to other types of networks.

The operations, methods, programs codes, and instructions describedherein and elsewhere may be implemented on or through mobile devices.The mobile devices may include navigation devices, cell phones, mobilephones, mobile personal digital assistants, laptops, palmtops, netbooks,pagers, electronic books readers, music players and the like. Thesedevices may include, apart from other components, a storage medium suchas a flash memory, buffer, RAM, ROM and one or more computing devices.The computing devices associated with mobile devices may be enabled toexecute program codes, methods, and instructions stored thereon.Alternatively, the mobile devices may be configured to executeinstructions in collaboration with other devices. The mobile devices maycommunicate with base stations interfaced with servers and configured toexecute program codes. The mobile devices may communicate on a peer topeer network, mesh network, or other communications network. The programcode may be stored on the storage medium associated with the server andexecuted by a computing device embedded within the server. The basestation may include a computing device and a storage medium. The storagedevice may store program codes and instructions executed by thecomputing devices associated with the base station.

The computer software, program codes, and/or instructions may be storedand/or accessed on machine readable media that may include: computercomponents, devices, and recording media that retain digital data usedfor computing for some interval of time; semiconductor storage known asrandom access memory (RAM); mass storage typically for more permanentstorage, such as optical discs, forms of magnetic storage like harddisks, tapes, drums, cards and other types; processor registers, cachememory, volatile memory, non-volatile memory; optical storage such asCD, DVD; removable media such as flash memory (e.g. USB sticks or keys),floppy disks, magnetic tape, paper tape, punch cards, standalone RAMdisks, Zip drives, removable mass storage, off-line, and the like; othercomputer memory such as dynamic memory, static memory, read/writestorage, mutable storage, read only, random access, sequential access,location addressable, file addressable, content addressable, networkattached storage, storage area network, bar codes, magnetic ink, and thelike.

The methods and systems described herein may transform physical and/oror intangible items from one state to another. The methods and systemsdescribed herein may also transform data representing physical and/orintangible items from one state to another, such as from usage data to anormalized usage dataset.

The elements described and depicted herein, including in flow charts andblock diagrams throughout the figures, imply logical boundaries betweenthe elements. However, according to software or hardware engineeringpractices, the depicted elements and the functions thereof may beimplemented on machines through computer executable media having aprocessor capable of executing program instructions stored thereon as amonolithic software structure, as standalone software modules, or asmodules that employ external routines, code, services, and so forth, orany combination of these, and all such implementations may be within thescope of the present disclosure. Examples of such machines may include,but may not be limited to, personal digital assistants, laptops,personal computers, mobile phones, other handheld computing devices,medical equipment, wired or wireless communication devices, transducers,chips, calculators, satellites, tablet PCs, electronic books, gadgets,electronic devices, devices having artificial intelligence, computingdevices, networking equipment, servers, routers and the like.Furthermore, the elements depicted in the flow chart and block diagramsor any other logical component may be implemented on a machine capableof executing program instructions. Thus, while the foregoing drawingsand descriptions set forth functional aspects of the disclosed systems,no particular arrangement of software for implementing these functionalaspects should be inferred from these descriptions unless explicitlystated or otherwise clear from the context. Similarly, it will beappreciated that the various steps identified and described above may bevaried, and that the order of steps may be adapted to particularapplications of the techniques disclosed herein. All such variations andmodifications are intended to fall within the scope of this disclosure.As such, the depiction and/or description of an order for various stepsshould not be understood to require a particular order of execution forthose steps, unless required by a particular application, or explicitlystated or otherwise clear from the context.

The methods and/or processes described above, and steps thereof, may berealized in hardware, software or any combination of hardware andsoftware suitable for a particular application. The hardware may includea general-purpose computer and/or dedicated computing device or specificcomputing device or particular aspect or component of a specificcomputing device. The processes may be realized in one or moremicroprocessors, microcontrollers, embedded microcontrollers,programmable digital signal processors or other programmable device,along with internal and/or external memory. The processes may also, orinstead, be embodied in an application specific integrated circuit, aprogrammable gate array, programmable array logic, or any other deviceor combination of devices that may be configured to process electronicsignals. It will further be appreciated that one or more of theprocesses may be realized as a computer executable code capable of beingexecuted on a machine readable medium.

The computer executable code may be created using a structuredprogramming language such as C, an object oriented programming languagesuch as C++, or any other high-level or low-level programming language(including assembly languages, hardware description languages, anddatabase programming languages and technologies) that may be stored,compiled or interpreted to run on one of the above devices, as well asheterogeneous combinations of processors, processor architectures, orcombinations of different hardware and software, or any other machinecapable of executing program instructions.

Thus, in one aspect, each method described above, and combinationsthereof may be embodied in computer executable code that, when executingon one or more computing devices, performs the steps thereof. In anotheraspect, the methods may be embodied in systems that perform the stepsthereof and may be distributed across devices in a number of ways, orall of the functionality may be integrated into a dedicated, standalonedevice or other hardware. In another aspect, the means for performingthe steps associated with the processes described above may include anyof the hardware and/or software described above. All such permutationsand combinations are intended to fall within the scope of the presentdisclosure.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method comprising:receiving, at an e-commerce order processor, an order from a first usercomprising at least one product, wherein the order is received inassociation with an order sharing configuration indication; processingthe order based on an order sharing criterion; receiving an order changefrom a second user; and processing an order completion.
 2. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the order sharing configuration indication indicatesthat order privileges for the order are shared with at least the seconduser based on an order sharing configuration.
 3. The method of claim 2,wherein the order sharing configuration comprises sharing privilegescomprising a maximum monetary value for products added to the order. 4.The method of claim 2, wherein the order sharing configuration comprisessharing privileges comprising a maximum quantity value for productsadded to the order.
 5. The method of claim 2, wherein the order sharingconfiguration comprises sharing privileges comprising a limit associatedwith a brand name associated with a product added to the order.
 6. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the order sharing criterion limits the seconduser to a monetary purchase value threshold for the order and processingthe order completion when the monetary purchase value threshold is met.7. The method of claim 1, wherein the order sharing criterion limits thesecond user to a time period delay between the received order and theprocessing of the order completion.
 8. The method of claim 1, whereinthe order sharing criterion limits the second user to a quantitythreshold for the at least one product.
 9. The method of claim 1,wherein the e-commerce order processor provides a user interface forreceiving the order and the order sharing criterion.
 10. A systemcomprising: an e-commerce order processor configured to store a set ofinstructions that, when executed, cause the e-commerce order processorto: receive, at the e-commerce order processor, an order from a firstuser comprising at least one product, wherein the order is received inconjunction with an order sharing configuration indication; process theorder based on an order sharing criterion; receive an order change froma second user; and process an order completion.
 11. Acomputer-implemented method comprising: receiving, at an e-commerceorder processor, an order from a first user comprising at least oneproduct, wherein the order is received in conjunction with an ordersharing configuration indication and in conjunction with an ordercompletion event; processing an order deferment for the order based onan order sharing criterion; receiving an order change from a seconduser; and processing an order completion based on the order sharingcriterion.
 12. The method of claim 11, wherein the order sharingconfiguration indication indicates that order privileges for the orderare shared with at least the second user based on an order sharingconfiguration.
 13. The method of claim 12, wherein the order sharingconfiguration comprises sharing privileges associated with adding,deleting, or changing quantities of products comprising the order. 14.The method of claim 12, wherein the order sharing configurationcomprises sharing privileges comprising a maximum monetary value foradding products to the order.
 15. The method of claim 12, wherein theorder sharing configuration comprises sharing privileges comprising alimit associated with a brand name associated with a product added tothe order.
 16. The method of claim 12, wherein the order sharingconfiguration comprises a data structure for the shared order amongst aplurality of users sharing order privileges.
 17. The method of claim 16,wherein order privileges for each of the plurality of users are storedin separate data structures.
 18. The method of claim 17, wherein accessto the separate data structures is provided through an access code. 19.The method of claim 16, wherein the data structure comprises tracking oforder contributions for each of the plurality of users.
 20. The methodof claim 16, wherein the data structure comprises tracking of ordercontributions associated with different product merchants.
 21. Themethod of claim 11, wherein the order sharing criterion limits thesecond user to a monetary purchase value threshold for the order andprocessing the order completion when the monetary purchase valuethreshold is met.
 22. The method of claim 11, wherein the order sharingcriterion limits the second user to a time period delay between thereceived order and the processing of the order completion.
 23. Themethod of claim 11, wherein the order sharing criterion limits thesecond user to a quantity threshold for the at least one product. 24.The method of claim 11, wherein the order sharing criterion limits thesecond user to a quantity threshold for total products comprising theorder.
 25. The method of claim 11, wherein the order deferment is adelay in a payment processing and fulfillment of the order until theorder change is received from the second user.
 26. The method of claim11, wherein the order deferment is a delay in an invoicing andfulfillment of the order until the order change is received from thesecond user.
 27. The method of claim 11, wherein the order completioncriterion is a monetary purchase value threshold for the order.
 28. Themethod of claim 11, wherein the order completion criterion is a timeperiod delay between the received order and the processing of the ordercompletion.
 29. The method of claim 11, wherein the order completioncriterion is a quantity threshold for the at least one product.
 30. Themethod of claim 11, wherein the order completion criterion is a quantitythreshold for products comprising the order.
 31. A system comprising: ane-commerce order processor configured to store a set of instructionsthat, when executed, cause the e-commerce order processor to: receive,at the e-commerce order processor, an order from a first user comprisingat least one product, wherein the order is received in conjunction withan order sharing configuration indication and in conjunction with anorder completion event; process an order deferment for the order basedon an order sharing criterion; receive an order change from a seconduser; and process an order completion based on the order sharingcriterion.